July 15th – From the Pastor’s Desk

We love good news, don’t we? Think about the moments when you received truly life-changing
news: a loved one recovering from illness, a long-awaited acceptance letter, a joyful reunion.
Good news always assumes a bigger story. It enters into an old world and promises a new future.

Christianity begins and moves forward not as advice, but as an announcement of
the best possible news. The Gospel is not a set of religious instructions or a private escape plan
to heaven. It is the joyous proclamation that God has acted decisively in Jesus Christ to heal,
restore, and reign over all creation.

As N. T. Wright puts it beautifully:

“The good news is that the one true God has now taken charge of the world, in and through
Jesus and his death and resurrection. The ancient hopes have indeed been fulfilled, but in a way
nobody had imagined. God’s plan to put the world right has finally been launched…. The good
news was, and is, that all this has happened in and through Jesus; that one day it will happen,
completely and utterly, to all creation; and that we humans, every single one of us, whoever we
are, can be caught up in that transformation here and now. This is the Christian gospel. Do not
allow yourself to be fobbed off with anything less.” (Simply Good News, ch.3)

When Jesus walked onto the scene, He didn’t merely preach about going to heaven someday. He
declared, “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!” (Mark 1:15).
He announced that heaven was coming to earth; that God’s reign of love, justice, and peace was
breaking in through Him. This was the moment Israel had longed for, and it remains the hope of
the world today.

Through Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, God’s kingdom has begun — and it changes
everything. We are no longer defined by our failures, our grief, or even death itself. We are
invited into a new family, a new story, a new way of life shaped by Jesus’ love. The Gospel is
God’s invitation for us to be transformed from the inside out, to become participants in His
mission of healing and renewal.

The Gospel means that in the face of death, we are not alone; in despair, we have a reason to
keep going; in every sorrow, we cling to the promise that one day God will wipe away every tear.
Through Jesus, God is setting the world right, and we are invited — all of us — to join Him in
this beautiful, life-giving work.

But this good news is not just something we hear and file away — it provokes a response. That’s
why Jesus didn’t simply announce the kingdom and move on; He called out, “Come, follow
me.” In Mark 1:15, Jesus says, “The time has come… the kingdom of God has come near.
Repent and believe the good news!”

To repent and believe doesn’t just mean to feel sorry for past mistakes or to agree to certain ideas
in our heads. It means to rethink everything (who God is, who we are, what our future holds) and
to reorient our whole lives around the reality that God’s kingdom has truly arrived in Jesus.

The Gospel is the announcement that Jesus is King and that God’s beautiful reign has begun. Our
response is to trust Him, to surrender our own little kingdoms, and to step into a life of following
Him — a life of learning His way of love, justice, and peace day by day.

In Abounding Grace,
Your Pastor